pitted against one another. The bulk of existing noteworthies seem to have had but little more than a fair education as small boys, during which their eagerness and aptitude for study led to their receiving favour and facilities. If, in such cases, the aptitudes are scholastic, a moderate sum suffices to give the boy a better education, enabling him to win scholarships and to enter a University. I f they lie in other directions, the boy attracts notice from some more congenial source, and is helped onwards in life by other means. The demand for exceptional ability, when combined with energy and good character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with them is hardly more likely to remain overlooked than a bird's nest in the playground of a school. But, by whatever means noteworthiness is achieved, it is usually after a course of repeated and half-unconscious testings of intelligence, energy, and character, which build up repute brick by brick.

I f we compare the number of those who achieved noteworthiness through their own exertions with the numbers of the greatly more numerous persons whose names are registered in legal, clerical, medical, official, military, and naval directories, or in those of the titled classes* and landed gentry, or lastly, in those of the immense commercial world, the pro

* By a rough count of the entries in Burke's " Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage," I find that upwards of 24,000 ladies are of sufficient rank to be included by name in his Table of